Tomorrow one of my most closest dearest friends gets married. I have known her for 21 of my 41 years. I wanted to dedicate today’s poem by David Whyte to her and to love, both of which sustain me fully and constantly. xo, MAV

LOVE IN THE NIGHTby David Whyte

Sometimes when you lie close to me,
your body is so still in my arms
I find myself half in love with your
barely breathing form and half in love
with the unspeaking silent source
from which you come. I find myself
touching your lips with mine
to feel their warmth and bowing my head
to hear your breath, and stilling myself
to listen far inside you for the gentle rise
and fall of the tide that tells me
you are still free to come and go in life,
so that I take your hand in mine to sense
your pulse and touch your hair
and stroke your cheek and move my lips
to yours to feel the warmth emerging
from your inward self and to
see we are still here and still pledged
to breathe this world together.

All night like this I find myself asleep
and awake, turned toward the moon
and then turned toward you, your warmth
inviting me to bring you close
and leave you alone, all night I find myself
unable to choose between the love
I feel for you through closeness
and the grief of having to let you go
through distance, so that it seems
I can only breathe fully in the dark
by taking you in and giving you away
in your quiet rhythm of appearance
and disappearance, letting you return
in your breathing and not breathing,
or your half sighed phrases spoken
to the dark, whispered from the dream
in which you live, so that I lie
between sleeping and waking,
seeing you are here and dreaming you are gone,
wanting to hold you and wanting to let you go,

living far inside you as you breathe close to me,
and living far beyond you, as I wait through
the hours of the night for you to wake
and find me again, the light in your eyes
half-dreaming on the pillow
looking back at me, and seeing me at last,

not knowing how far I have travelled,
through what distance I have come to find you,
where I have been, or what I have seen,
how far or how near; not knowing how
I have gained and lost you a hundred times
between darkness and dawn.